Tim Lister via CNN:

‘Russian authorities are responding to an incident in which a suspected dangerous infection was released as a result of a laboratory accident in Siberia and a researcher died.

The incident occurred at the Anti-Plague Research Institute in Shelekhov, near Irkutsk, according to Russian state media TASS.

It is unclear exactly what was released, according to the state agency that handles infectious disease, Rospotrebnadzor. One person – a laboratory worker – is said to have died in the incident after being diagnosed with a pneumonia of “unknown” origin.

…The head of the neighboring republic of Buryatia, Alexei Tsydenov, said earlier that the employee – a 28-year old woman – died “possibly from the plague.” He also noted that “there are no plague outbreaks” in Buryatia….’

Matthew Rozsa via Alternet.org:

‘Back in May, a group of 36 health professionals wrote an open letter to Congress warning that President Donald Trump is in a state of cognitive decline. Even though the medical and political communities were willing to call out President Joe Biden’s apparent decline during the 2024 election, Trump has received an inexplicable and inexcusable pass for his own obvious infirmities. Individuals are willing to sound the alarm, of course, but nothing has occurred on a systematic level to alert the American people to the fact that their president is psychologically unwell.

Below is AlterNet’s exclusive interview with psychiatrist Dr. Henry Abraham, formerly of Tufts University, who said that Trump is literally a “maniac” because he displays manic traits like posting on social media late into the night. He also broke down Trump’s tendency to ramble, his grandiosity and his obsession with his predecessor, President Barack Obama….’

Dr Abraham is a colleague of mine and, as readers here can tell, I share his perspective on the Orange Menace and repost selections from his Substack writing.

David Nield via ScienceAlert:

‘According to the 2025 study, carried out by a team from the University of São Paulo in Brazil and the University of Auckland in New Zealand, the lateral parafacial (pFL) brain region can trigger biological changes that raise blood pressure.

The pFL is linked to breathing control – specifically those forceful and deliberate exhalations that happen during exercise or when we cough or laugh.

In tests carried out on rats, the researchers found it can also do something else: tighten up blood vessels.

That combination of breath control and blood vessel signaling could be driving hypertension in some cases, the researchers say.

It might explain why so many people (around 40 percent by some estimates) still have uncontrolled blood pressure despite taking anti-hypertensive medications….’

Conor Murray via Forbes:

‘Six of Trump’s Sunday afternoon posts including pictures of the Kennedy Center’s apparently deteriorating interior—which he called “crumbling,” “dilapidated” and “grotesque”—as well as sharp words for Christopher Cooper, the federal district judge who ordered his name removed from the venue.

“The Kennedy Center is crumbling, and a great danger to anyone who walks inside,” Trump said in one post, claiming it will “only get worse unless the Radical Left Judge, with his Trump Hating lawyer wife, allows me to do what must be done!”—an apparent reference to the Kennedy Center’s latest attempt to place Trump’s name on the venue, which Cooper blocked.

He also posted a handful of Greenland memes, one of which shows a large Trump looming over a mountain, while the other shows Trump looking at a group of penguins (which do not live in Greenland) holding American flags.

Several of Trump’s posts were pictures of himself with Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he hosted last month, calling him a “Great Leader” in one post, while another post brags that “President Trump gets YOUNGER.”…’

Nahal Toosi via POLITICO:

‘President Donald Trump has done a lot this year to live up to the criticism that he is reckless. But in a faceoff with a heavily armed, religiously driven regime that’s threatening a critical waterway, he’s acting remarkably restrained.

Trump may have no choice: It’s really hard to deal with the Houthis….’

Norman J. Ornstein via The New Republic:

‘If House Democrats don’t use every tool at their disposal to name names, kick ass, and stop further destruction, there will be hell to pay with the base….’

Abbi Henderson via BBC Science Focus Magazine:

‘New cholesterol guidelines aim to tackle heart disease decades before it strikes. But is earlier treatment always better?…’